Laura

Hey...I've been really sick this week so I just wanted to apologize to my millions of loyal readers for the light posting. In the meantime enjoy this double photo of my beautiful girlfriend I took last week....

Mussels II

Last night Laura and I went over our friend Lindsey's who made a wonderful mussel dinner. The photo is of our pre-diner toast. I've gotten pretty good at the hold-the-camera-out-shoot, eh? After dinner we watched the Cavs put the Bulls out of their misery - I may have had a few to many Great Lakes and decided to walk home. I took the below long exposure picture on my way...

Popular Guy™

So yeah, as the title indicates, I'm a popular guy around the web so far this week. The Akron Beacon Journal published the above photo in Sunday's paper(Premier Section) along with a review of Gabe Schray's latest projects. Unfortunately they didn't get permission or give me a photo credit. Their web guy is a much better dude, he e-mailed me asking if it was my photo and then linked it to this site. So a big props to Ohio.com's Dan Kadar!

I also noticed 4 of my Akron photos on the blog Here's Looking at Me Kid. While I'm not crazy about the photos not linking directly back to their flickr page(as stated in flickr's TOS) at least there is a link provided. The below photo is one that was used....

Water Towers

I was driving around Akron today scoping out some sites for photo-taking. I was looking for some places that I would want to come back to around sunset and get that 'magic hour" lighting. I snapped this while I was out and I tried to use some Photoshop filters to give it more of an old school filmy look. I kinda like it....

Yard Work

Quit slackin! Get outside and do your yard work!
I used a flash on each side of me to light this photo.

Razor Wire

I was waiting around for a friend to show up yesterday and I starting shooting around the area. These two shots are good at demonstrating how much the focal point can alter the composition.  The close focus on the bottom picture is my favorite of the two.

Sophia and Laura

Laura and I took her niece, Sophia, out to dinner yesterday. She wanted, "chicken fingas at Applebee's" so that's where we went. I, as always, snapped some pictures. I was looking the through the above four photos trying to decide my favorite one to post - then I thought " why not post them all as one" in a photo-booth-kinda-style. The light from the window hit their faces pretty perfectly giving each photo a natural vignette which I thought made these look pretty cool when put together.

Just Chillin'

I haven't been able to post too much lately - its not that I haven't been shooting - its just that I've been shooting for work(and those photos are on the work computers). Today when I got off I decided I had to shoot something - so I shot my favorite subject, myself. This is lit with two flashes - one overhead using a shoot-through umbrella, and the other is to the left for some fill.

Random Nature

A couple of shots taken at O'Neil Woods Metro Park in Bath.

Its getting greener everyday in the woods - though it always does seem a bit behind the city...

Tulips in Light

OK, I know - its probably time to lay off the flower posts for a bit. I'll try to make this the last one for a while...try. Its so hard this time of year not to constantly shoot the emerging color. After months of feeling like I live in the tundra little things like the budding leaves on my huge oak tree become really exciting.

Night Time is the Right Time

Last night I put my mini-tripod on my camera and explored my front yard. I love the quality seemingly normal everyday things take on at night with long exposures. All of these photos were taken with exposures between 15 and 30 seconds.

More Daffodils

Laura and I hiked the Daffodil Trail at Furnace Run Metro Park in Richfield on Saturday. It was a short, half-mile trail with patches of daffodils every so often. To be honest it wasn't that exciting. We went back to the main part of Furnace Run afterwards and hiked one of the longer more interesting trails.

Here we are by the lake and shelter...

Daffodils

Spring keeps springing in my yard - this is my second flowers post. Whoever owned and planted the gardens at my place did an amazing job. First I get the little purple and yellow flowers, next come the daffodils and my tulips are about ready to open up - it continues on like this with roses and such and ends in the fall with the mums. I love watching the changes in my yard and I'll continue to document it with my camera.

Beta War

Beta War is a new Akron punk band featuring two friends of mine - Mickey(laying down) and Ryan(in the air). They had been talking for a few weeks about needed some shots. Being that they both love to skate and drink I came up with the idea for this photo.

I took it behind the Matinee in Highland Square. I used one flash with a diffuser that is low and to the left to light this picture.

Akron Sunset

This view is from the roof of a building on Grant Street. The buildings in the picture are Canal Place and the Gojo HQ. I hadn't taken a "pretty sunset" photo for a while - so here it is....
Not that it really matters, but for the record there isn't too much Photoshopping going on here - a little bit of saturation, vibrance and clarity in Camera Raw was it.

Lord of the Yum Yum

I met 'Lord of the Yum Yum'(aka Paul) from Chicago last year when he was playing a show at The Royal Oaks in Youngstown. He had a few dates fall through for his Spring '10 Tour so I hooked him up with shows at the Akron Matinee and the Happy Dog(see previous post) in Cleveland. We(Paul, my room-mate and I) decided to stop in the National Park on the way to Cleveland to take some promo shots(and show him a little of Northeast Ohio's natural beauty). Paul had the idea to shoot some pictures in a lake with a trombone - I told him I couldn't supply a trombone but I did have a lake.

Happy Dog

Last night some friends and I ventured up to the Happy Dog on Cleveland's west side. This place serves hot dogs anyway you want them - and I mean anyway. You want crunchy peanut butter, fruit loops, fried eggs, cole slaugh, BBQ sauce, smoked gouda? They got it...and tons more.

Also - I was there to catch Trouble Books, Lord of the Yum Yum and Gabe Schray play. The above photo is 'Lord' and below is Trouble Books.

Cascade Race

These shots are of the remnants of the mill race at Cascade Locks Park right outside of Downtown Akron. The mill race ran parallel to the canal and fed a 36 foot water wheel. This area is were Akron had its first industrial boom. Schumacher Mill, later Quaker Oats, is the mill that made use of this race. Besides this tunnel it now mostly looks like a stream of water filled with old junk.